


Unfinished

by yuletide_archivist



Category: IT - Stephen King
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richie Tozier has some unfinished business  to resolve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfinished

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Alex, my wonderful beta. 
> 
> Written for Katie

 

 

ï»¿Richie Tozier doesn't think he needs a shrink, he's perfectly fine, thank you very much.

"I have enough problems without a college grad asking me if my daddy ever touched me in inappropriate ways," he declares when Steve offers to hook him up with a good one.

But then everyone and their dog is getting a therapist like it's the newest must-have accessory, and one day Richie finds himself giving in.

"Really, I don't see why being normal has suddenly become abnormal," he says at their first session.

"Everyone has psychological problems," his therapist tells him in that grave-but-reassuring tone that doctors in TV med shows use to inform their patients they have cancer.

Her name is Judy, and she's not fresh out of college, thank God for small favors. She's forty-ish, tastefully blond, has nice legs and a long nose that looks like a beak.

These are the days of the daycare sex abuse hysteria, and Judy obviously thinks she's hit gold.

"Mr. Tozier," she says, and, after a carefully rehearsed pause, "Rich. You have a lot of work to do. You remember almost nothing about the year you turned eleven, then there's another blank spot at thirty-eight... And all those different personalities-"

"That's my _job_ , Judy. Don't make me sound like a schizo."

But she does. She explains over and over about defense mechanisms and repressed memories and psychogenic amnesia, until Richie's almost sure there's abuse in his childhood, not to mention a murder or two.

He's always liked radical solutions - take the vasectomy, for instance - so it's no surprise when he finds himself half-lying on the couch, listening to Judy going through the first stages of a hypnosis session.

"I'm feeling kind of stupid here," he tells her. He's a bit sleepy, but not too much. "Maybe you should try to dangle a gold watch in front of my eyes, because I'm not really-"

And then he's falling, somewhere dark, warm, and...

***

wet. Richie is swimming. He's very comfortable: there's a cozy swaying sensation, and he's sucking on his thumb. All's well in the world, you would say.

Richie's six months old, although most people (grown-up people) would say he's not anything yet, because he's still three months away from being born.

Suddenly there's a dark, pungent odor which he will later come to associate with bogs and sewers. The water inside his mouth turns rotten and cloying. Richie feels (tastes) different smells sometimes, but this is different. _Really_ different. The smells he usually gets are interesting and sometimes a little disturbing, but this one is outright scary. Richie clenches and unclenches his fists. He kicks his legs and shuts his mouth tightly, but the smell is everywhere. And then he feels the _wave_.

It's all wrong. It's not time for his first wave yet, he's sure of it. He's not even big enough, so he bounces off the walls a couple of times as the wave sucks him down, headfirst. He struggles against the flow, grabbing fruitlessly at the slick walls.

His mother is scared. The fluid around him is thrumming with cortisol. He hears her voice (although he doesn't know what she's saying, not yet):  
"Of course I didn't! I'm pregnant, for God's sake! I just feel sick, like I'm going to retch."

"Do you remember eating anything unusual, ma'am?" a deep, masculine voice that doesn't belong to his father asks.

"No, I didn't even have breakfast yet, just a glass of water!"

"Don't worry, Mrs. Tozier, this is probably nothing. But we're going to have to put you on a magnesium IV drip just in case..."

The voices drone on, but Richie can't hear them over the powerful pull and the rancid taste in his mouth. And then everything stops-

***

"Does our washing machine ever talk to you?"

Went and Maggie exchange looks over his head - the half-amused half-exasperated looks the parents of bright, but overly imaginative boys get way too often.

"Why, does it sound like it's talking to you, honey?" Maggie asks.

"It doesn't _sound_ like it's talking to me, it just talks," Richie explains patiently. "It tells me stuff. Only I can't talk back, because it doesn't understand me."

"Well, it can't really talk, you know," Went says. "It doesn't have a voicebox. But it can sound like it is when it's rumbling."

Rumbling is a good word, Richie thinks. Their washing machine is a Constructa, large, squat, with two round dials that look like eyes and a huge round mouth of a door. And it does too tell him things, even if his parents don't believe it. Like yesterday, when his parents had a fight, it told him not to worry, because his Mom was just having her time of the month, whatever that means. His parents made up an hour later.   
Rumbling. Richie turns the word over in his mind and suddenly has an idea. What if the washing machine doesn't understand him because of the way he talks? What it he tried speaking to it in a special way, a special _Voice_? Not like a foreign language, but like grownups talk to babies or deaf people?

"May I be excused, please?" he asks.

"Finish your breakfast, honey," Maggie says, but Richie's already half-way to the door.

In the hall he pauses, because he hears his Mom's voice, thick with worry:  
"Do you think he's lonely?"

"Don't be silly, Meg, kids invent imaginary friends all the time," his Dad answers.

"But a washing machine?"

"We've created a monster, haven't we?" Went chuckles.

Richie turns on his heel and runs down to the laundry room to practice his first Voice.

***

Ellie's amazing, but that doesn't mean Richie can't appreciate beauty when he sees it. In a purely abstract way, of course.  
The young woman sitting at the next table is striking - gorgeous red hair, long coltish legs, the whole deal. She's chatting to a friend, and Richie starts to listen automatically. The things they're discussing make him wonder if he's walked onto a movie set by accident.

"I think I'm going out of my mind," the redhead confesses. "They're questioning me and I can't remember a single thing! Seriously, Kay, I don't even remember what went on at your place, much less what happened in Derry."

"Jesus, Bev, what did you expect? You were stressed out over Tom for who knows how long, and then the fight, and then you were lucky enough to walk into the first hurricane Maine's ever seen. Dissociative amnesia, textbook case."

"Well, it doesn't look like a textbook case to the cops."

"What, do they think you killed the jerk and buried his body in the woods? Not that he didn't deserve it, mind you, but that's just not your style. I'm surprised you even got the nerve to _leave_ the son of a bitch."

"Come on, don't talk about him like he's already dead. He may still be alive-"

***

 _Snap_.  
Richie is standing in total blackness, and the noise he just heard is the sound of a screen being rolled up.

 _Have you seen enough, Richie?_ a voice asks from behind.

Richie whips around smartly and has to laugh - the voice belongs to a life-size Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

"I'm going crazy," he says out loud.

_No you're not. But you are digging up things that are best left buried. Why is that, do you think?_

"Are you actually trying to analyze me? Is this a fucked-up therapy session inside my own mind?"

_Call it what you will, Richie. Do you want to think about why you're here or shall we watch some more?_

Richie shivers.  
"No thanks, I think I've had enough of that. That stuff was creeping me out."

_Maybe there's a reason for that, hmmm?_

"Jesus, you sound like Yoda."

_Very funny, Richie. And I didn't show you anything. Why are you here?_

"Because I want to remember what happened. But I still have no idea what all those things you _didn't_ show me have to do with each other. Or with anything at all, really."

The turtle crosses its arms and taps its foot. Richie tries to think, but finds it hard to concentrate - what with the giant turtle and all. The things he's seen aren't even connected in any way. There's no recurring theme, no links. Except... The first two obviously took place before he was eleven, and the third one happened after he met Ellie, so he was at least forty-one...

"It's a cycle, isn't it? Not just two separate things that I don't remember, but a progression of events?"

_Very good. Now think about why you're coming back to it._

"Because I'm actually insane and hallucinating?"

The turtle shakes its head and sighs.

"Because it's not over yet?"

The turtle doesn't have to answer, because in a sudden, brilliant flash Richie remembers everything. He remembers what they did, how great they were together, and it's good, but it also hurts, because there's Eddie who's dead and the others who might as well be dead because they don't remember anything and-

_Snap out of it. You still have work to do._

"But we killed It. Oh please dear God say we killed It, because if we didn't-"

_Oh, you killed It all right, no question. But it's still not over, is it? Because there's something important you all have in common, and one of you will have to change that._

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

_Think. You'll remember._

Richie closes his eyes.

"You're not the real Turtle, are you?"

_Does it matter?_

"No, I guess it doesn't."

The turtle smiles.

_Then maybe it's time to wake_

***

"...up! Wake up, please! Mr. Tozier, are you alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Richie says groggily, blinking at the bright sunlight filtering through the blinds. It takes him a few moments to remember where he is.

"So how did it go? What did I say? Any horrifying secrets?"

Judy's shuffling papers around on her desk, much more brisk and business-like than he's ever seen her.

"No, no, nothing interesting. The usual. Childhood memories, that sort of thing."

"But did you find out what's wrong with me?"

Judy looks up, studiously avoiding his eyes.  
"Well, nothing is, is it? I'd say you're absolutely fine, Mr. Turtle, nothing to find, just one of those things."

"What?"

"I said you're absolutely fine, there's nothing wrong with you," she repeats as if they're discussing blood count results, not a hypnotis session."

"No, what did you call me?"

She looks at him blankly.  
"Tozier. I called you Mr. Tozier. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Richie says.

He feels a curious lightness, the feeling you get after passing a particularly difficult exam.

"I don't think we need to do this anymore," he says.

Judy looks relieved.   
"Yes, I think that would be best," she agrees.

Richie walks out the door smiling.  
He's still smiling when he stops at a phone booth and dials Ellie.  
"Do you think you can get off early today? I've got this interesting idea, don't know why I didn't think of it before," he says in his smarmiest Kinky Briefcase voice and listens to her laugh.

***

"Why don't we call her Margaret? For your mother?" Ellie asks. She's staring out the window dreamily, glass of water in her hand.

"Maggie's nice," Richie says. "But I'm pretty sure it'll be a boy."

"You can't _know_ that!" Ellie laughs.

"I just have a hunch, my deah," Buford Kissdrivel says, and Ellie laughs even harder.

"Well, we're not calling him Wentworth, so don't even ask."

"How about Eddie?"

Ellie turns to him, surprised, and Richie has nothing to say - he doesn't know where it came from. He just knows that it's a good name for a son, same way he knows he'll have a son, not a daughter.

"Why? Is there a family member I don't know about?"

Richie doesn't hear her.  
"We'll call him Eddie... never Eds."

"Rich? Richie?"

She's looking into his face, alarmed, and Richie snaps out of it.  
"Just a nice name, is all. Nobody special. And Jesus, Ellie, don't drink tap-water. You're carrying the Tozier heir, you should know better."

"I'll remember," she promises, and Richie smiles.

 

 

 


End file.
